My family and I are going on a cruise shortly. We will be visiting the Dominican Republic, Grand Turk, Puerto Rico, and St. Thomas. If I want my phone to work in these locations will I need to add the international plan to them or is there a rate I'll be charged for roaming. I've tried to locate this information, but it seems confusing as to if it applies to the TMobile One Military plans.

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Hey there! With the T-Mobile ONE Military plan, you do have access to Simple Global! This means that all of the information you see concerning T-Mobile ONE also pertains to the Military plan. It would only be different if you were on T-Mobile ONE Essentials.

In all of the areas you noted, you will have free unlimited data (likely at 2G or less speeds, upgradable up to 256 kbps with the addition of the PLUS feature for $15.00 per line; also data passes are available if you need short-term access to high speed internet while away) and free unlimited texts; calls back to the US will be billed at $0.25/minute. Calls back to the United States placed over WiFi calling are free, however. (The most effective way to do this is to go into airplane mode on the phone, THEN connect to wifi, turn on wifi calling, then place the call. This assures that you are not switching into the cellular connection and are only using pure WiFi thus avoiding any charges for the call.)

It is very important to note that if you call anywhere ELSE you will be charged the standard international rate. For example, if you are in the Dominican Republic and you place a call to someone also in the Dominican Republic, you will be charged $3.00/minute. If you foresee a need to call international numbers while you are abroad, I would add the Stateside International feature to your line. The cost of the feature is $15.00 per month per line, but would re-rate those afore mentioned $3.00 calls to $0.05 per minute for mobile and free calls to landlines.

And finally- While you're on the boat, I do recommend putting your devices in airplane mode. While you are on Maritime towers, you will be looking at approximately $0.50 per text sent and $5.99 per minute calls. (Your mileage may vary, I checked several different cruise lines and all had the same numbers). Incoming calls (even those declined and / or sent to VM) are charged at 1 minute, so it's best to only open the cellular network connection on your phone when you are stateside. When you leave the boat and turn on your cellular service, you will receive a text message that welcomes you to the country and advises you of your rates while you are there.

As a bonus- don't forget to check your devices here to make sure they will be able to access the signal in your chosen country. Type in the country name, then scroll to the bottom of the page to enter your device type.

Just wanted to chime in here. magentatechie has some very helpful information but this part is a bit wrong.

It is very important to note that if you call anywhere ELSE you will be charged the standard international rate. For example, if you are in the Dominican Republic and you place a call to someone also in the Dominican Republic, you will be charged $3.00/minute. If you foresee a need to call international numbers while you are abroad, I would add the Stateside International feature to your line. The cost of the feature is $15.00 per month per line, but would re-rate those afore mentioned $3.00 calls to $0.05 per minute for mobile and free calls to landlines.

If you are on the T-Mobile One plan, Military or otherwise, calls to and from Simple Global countries while you are in a Simple Global country are $0.25/min. The only time you would have to worry about paying a rate higher than that would be when you are calling another country that is not a Simple Global country like South Sudan or something. PR and the US virgin islands are part of domestic coverage so your phone will work there just as it does in the US. As for the DR and Turks and Caicos, those are Simple Global countries.

Be very careful to turn the phone off before you get on the ship and don't connect to the ship's cellular system if you want to avoid possible sky-high roaming bills. There was a recent complaint here about getting high roaming bills for a phone that was supposed to be in airplane mode on the ship.